


Cell (Joshler)

by orphan_account



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Blood and Gore, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 14:12:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11670690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There's a reason "Cell" rhymes with "Hell"





	1. The Pulse

Josh lived in a town in Ohio known as Columbus. The current time was 3:02PM on the first of October. He has just come up with another pitch to hopefully land that comic book animating job that he has been trying to get for so long, and since he was so confident, he even bought a little present for his kid that lived with his parents in Maine. His name was Johnny. The present was a large heavy-metal paper weight. He may not find use of it now, but he most likely will later, and hey, maybe it will become an antique in the near or distant future. 

 

Josh was currently waiting in line at an ice cream truck parked in the middle of a well known and green park. He thought he should treat himself to a little something too, and he just happened to pass an ice cream truck on his walk home from work, and he decided that this was the way the he was going to treat himself. 

 

The man serving the ice cream was your average food truck worker. Fat and tall, scruff, and short hair. There were two people in front of the line which Josh stood and no one behind him. The park wasn't too full today, most likely because everyone in the city was still working, but it wasn't too empty either. There were a few little families and some people with just their dogs and the owner of that said dog. 

 

In front of Josh in line was a woman in a gray power suit, maybe in her late 30's to early 40's with short blonde hair and behind her were two young girls, both with pixie cuts. The only way Josh would tell them apart from behind them where he stood was by the color of their hair. 

 

Like he most usually does, Josh assigned names to the people in front of him, Power Suit Woman, Pixie Light, and Pixie Dark. Nothing too special, but it got the job done in his mind.

 

Power Suit Woman's phone had rung on the time that the minute hand flicked out to 3:03 on Josh's watch and she answered it, like almost anyone would, but Pixie Light was already on the phone, Pixie Dark right next to her, head leaning close to the phone to listen to the conversation that was just then taking place.

 

Power Suit Woman had hung up her phone before the next minute passed, closing it and putting it away in her purse. Mind you, that everyone in this day in age had flip phones, not those fancy things you call smart phones. Pixie Light, however, was still on hers with Pixie Dark still listening closely.

 

As the minute hand on Josh's watch ticked out again to the next minute, almost on cue, Pixie Light dropped her phone onto the ground, as if it slipped out of her hand, but it didn't seem to be on accident, or on purpose for that matter, it just, seemed to happen for a more deeper reason, and that's what Josh observed in that moment.

 

It seemed as all of Pixie Light's body has just been shocked by some sort of electrical wave, and suddenly she was a new person, a more dangerous, monstrous, and fucking disgusting person. But what Josh noticed was that Power Suit Woman seemed to have turned the same way, except, less extreme.

 

In less than a blink of an eye, Pixie Light had made a inhuman sound and lunged at Power Suit Woman who was just reaching for her ice cream as the man at the food truck window held it out for her, just in time for him to snap his arm back and avoid the woman who was being launched towards him by another younger and tinier girl.  Pixie Light bit into Power Suit Woman's neck, killing her and leaving her body to drown in her own blood. 

 

The dog in which Power Suit Woman had with her, which Josh must have just not had the time to notice, darted from her owner once her owner was on the ground and her leash was free from her grip and ran into the road where a car swerved and hit the dog. It screeched like a dog would when it got hurt then lied there, twitching and dying.

 

Before Josh could think, he took the large paper weight that he was holding that was going to be saved for his son and swung it at Pixie Light's head just as she was lunging towards her other friend who has been listening to the call as well, Pixie Dark. The dark haired version of the two let out a loud and high pitched scream as her now murderous and dead friend hit the ground with a semi large gash on the back of her head from the force and power at which Josh had hit her with the paper weight.

 

Josh looked down at the mess that had happened and then started to look around the park to see if anyone else just saw the shit show that had started and ended in less than 5 seconds, but what he saw was more of the same exact fucking thing happening all around him. 

 

There was a man who was wrestling with his dog, the dog trying desperate to break free. The man was biting the dog's ear with his teeth and after a few more seconds of the wrestling, ripped the ear right off the dog. The dog screeched like the one did when it got hit by a car and was finally able to break free of its owner and run away into no where, most likely just to get hit by a car, just like the other unfortunate animal.

 

There was an explosion in the distance, followed by alarms going off, car and fire alarms to be exact. More bangs and even a crash of two cars colliding. Josh didn't know what the hell was going on and turned back to Pixie Dark to see maybe she knew what was happening.

 

Pixie Dark had no answer, but she spoke before Josh could even say the question he wanted the answer to.

 

"Who am I!" Pixie Dark screamed. "Who am I! Who am I! Who am I!" 

 

"Hey hey hey calm down," Josh tried to sooth the frantic girl, "Come with me and we will get some place safe, come on."

 

"WHO AM I!" She screamed again.

 

Josh took a step back at her sudden rage. Then, Pixie Dark began to giggle. It wasn't a giggle you would hear when you showed someone something funny, but that of a maniacal giggle, something dark.

 

"Who am I!" She repeating over and over again, giggling occasionally as she took the palm of her hand and started to repeatedly slap it against her forehead.

 

Josh took another step back and almost fell over the body of Pixie Light who lay dead and motionless on the ground.

 

Pixie Dark smiled before repeating her phrase one last time, louder and more insane than any of the other times she has said it and ran in the opposite direction of Josh.

 

She ran into a metal light pole, like the ones you see on the street, and hit her face on it. She moved back a little from it and rammed into it again, over and over and over again until she finally turned back to Josh again with that same damned smile, except this time, multiple teeth were missing, her lip was cut, and her mouth was bleeding from the inside, spilling blood onto her chin. 

 

She laughed one more time before running off into the road and out of Josh's eyesight. 

 

He turned back to the place in which the ice cream trucked was just parked to see if maybe he and the man running the truck could team up and maybe see what was going on, but he was already long gone. He heard the jingles of the ice cream truck as it roared down the street , before stopping hard on the brakes to avoid hitting someone.

 

"Fucking asshole." Josh whispered to himself before thinking that maybe it would be a good idea to get back to his hotel and think about what the hell just happened before he ends up like Power Suit Woman or Pixie Light.


	2. Phone Crazy

Josh didn't know what he was thinking when he thought that he was going to be able to make it back to his hotel on East 2nd Street without it being hell, cause boy was he wrong. More explosions, each bigger and louder than the other kept going off every couple minutes. Smoke was filling the bright blue, now gray, sky. Fires were springing up almost everywhere in the skyscrapers and business buildings. He even saw people jumping out the windows of some to escape the fire (or were they infected and decided to jump down to try and get others?) and just falling to their death.

Screams and inhuman noises were audible all around him as he tried to maneuver his way through the city, his heart pounding, and get back to his hotel room so he could try and regroup and figure out what was happening. He knew a few things as of now as to what is happening, but not enough to piece things together. He tried to think while he walked but most everything kept getting jumbled together. He was, however, able to conclude a few things: 

-The two people in front of him got turned when they were talking on their phones, but the one lady put hers away and wasn't fully turned.

-Pixie Dark was listening to the phone call and became one of them

-Pixie Dark was able to talk, but Pixie Light wasn't.

The only connections Josh was able to see with all the thoughts and panic flying and buzzing in his head at a million miles an hour was the phones.

That's it, the phones! 

Luckily, Josh didn't own a phone, neither did he know anyone that di-

Johnny.

Josh felt his heart drop, stumbling a little as he felt the blood drain from his face and his ears start to ring. His son was the one person he knew that had a phone, his mother too, but he was more concerned about his own son right now, but he didn't have much time to think about it seeing as he was quickly pulled back to reality when a semi-skinny man came running down the street and crashed into him, knocking him off his feet, the air out of his lungs and, knocking the briefcase full of drawings for his job out of his hand.

"Dude what the fu-" Was the only thing that Josh had the time to say and the man who knocked him over fell on top of him as well and rolled off just at the same speed. After Josh was able to focus his vision again, he saw a man with a large butcher knife running, no, sprinting down the street with the intent to kill with it.

It wouldn't be even 10 seconds before the man caught up the spot at which Josh and the mysterious and asshole-ish man were. Josh picked himself up off the ground and fast as he could, grabbing his briefcase off the ground and stuck it out in front of him, just at the same time as the man with the knife was bringing it down to him.

The knife struck the briefcase and was lodged inside of it. The man carrying it tried to pull it out and had no luck, much to the relief of Josh. The man who had trampled him, rammed into the other man head first screaming and knocking him to the ground, causing him to release his grip on the lodged knife. The mysterious man sat on top of the other and started to throw punches at him, shouting profanities, tears falling and spit flying everywhere. Most of his punches were weak, which was odd considering his anger, but it got the job done, and break his nose, cutting his lip, etc. 

A police officer had ran over to the man while Josh was trying to get the knife out of the briefcase and soon gave up, joining the other two with the deranged and insane man pinned on the ground. The other man still looked angry, but there was also something else on his face. Panic. Fear. Josh felt sympathy for whoever this stranger was because he was also feeling the exact same way. 

The cop holstered the gun that he was holding, but still had his hand on it.

"What's your name?" The question was directed at Josh as he sat down on the ground, staring at the man, his head flipping back and forth, a true lunatic.

 

Josh hesitated, still trying to calm himself down, his heart pounding and his breathing moderately fast.

 

"Josh," he said, the cop didn't seem satisfied, "Dun."

"What about you?" He said to the man still sitting on the other

 

The man just sat there, staring at the floor, totally ignoring the cop. He cleared his throat as of saying ignoring his question was not an option and the man blinked a few times as if he was waking up from a daydream. 

 

"Tyler Joseph." He mumbled. He looked around and you could see he face drop again as he realized it was a nightmare he was woken up in the middle of.

"What about you?" He said looking, at the man on the ground. He didn't reply, only giving inhuman noises such as "Eeech!" and "Kakwaski!" Insane talk is what Josh liked to call it.

With the no answer, the officer unholstered his gun and shot the man deadcenter between the eyes. Blood splattered on all three of them, and the ground.

"Aim for the head" Is what the officer said before getting off the ground and leaving the two men stunned on the ground, neither over the age of 30.

The men sat there in silence, both still in shock about the events that have happened to do or say anything. Joswas staring at the crazies still chest thinking about how he was doomed. 

"Gross." Is what the other said, pulling Josh back down to reality. The other man began picking bits of skull off his shirt and trying to brush off dust and rocks he had gotten on there as well.

"You're telling me." Josh replied, sighing and deciding to go back to work on getting the knife out of his briefcase. Everything he had in there was ruined, even his-

"Fuck." Josh said, it came out in a tone of anger and in sadness.

The other man, named Tyler apparently, seemed surprised by Josh's sudden outrage over a briefcase.

"Hey, so uh, what's wrong?" Tyler asked the other man, he wasn't too good with sympathy stuff with strangers, people you haven't gotten to know yet.

"All my drawings, everything that would have landed me that job, everything that would have made my life better" Josh started, feeling the panic rise up I his chest again.

"Well I don't think that even if the stuff was spared, you would be landing that job. I mean, look around- everything's gone to shit. See this guy? He killed two other women before catching eyes with me, and you helped me, so y'know, thanks for doing that i guess."

"Well it only cost me my future job but of course man."

"Again, look around." An explosion interrupted Tyler before he was able to say anymore, but continued anyway, "I don't see how you can be worried about a job when your life is at stake. Do you really think that you were gonna land that job? The phones turned everyone fucking crazy as shit man"

And that's all Josh needed to hear to be more concerned about his son again. The phones were the cause of this all.

"Ok, look here, I'm in a rush I need to get up north to Maine as soon as I can and you can either come back with me to my hotel room or you can stay here and do your own gig, I don't have time to sit here and think about more shit. We're sitting ducks right here and I really don't feel like getting killed right now. So what is it??"

"Well I might as well come with you, but first, get that knife out of your suitcase, it might be helpful if he come across another one of those Phone Crazies, huh that's a suiting name."

"Perfect we got a name to call the assholes running around town killing everyone now let's fucking go." Josh said, pulling on the knife a few more times and finally getting it out. It was a pretty large blade, at least 6 inches and he stuffed it in his belt for safe keeping incase he needed to use it at any point in time.

"Alright then Mr. Briefcase, let's go."

2

They began their not so long trek back to Josh's hotel room to get some stuff to hopefully be off but honestly, Josh didn't know how he was going to get anywhere. He didn't have food, and they sure as hell couldn't go stop at a McDonald's and buy some burgers in this hell. He didn't have any sleeping supplies, and again, it's not like he could go out and buy some without risking death.

Luckily for Tyler and Josh, they didn't run into any of those things Tyler calls Phone Crazies, only one who they encountered when they were almost to the hotel.

The man they encountered had been naked except for a pair of white Puma's on his feet. His cock had been swinging back and forth as his hands were waving car aerials in each and waving them back at forth, chanting more of that inhuman talk just like the other man had. His ass had been clenching and unclenching at fantastic rhythm as well.

Screams, explosions, and more car accidents could be heard all around. It didn't take an expert to realize everything that was going on. 

It was a god damn apocalypse is what it was, and both Josh and Tyler knew that.

After the naked man had run past them into an alley way, they darted across the street to the front of the hotel. 

The door was locked.

They banged on it and yelled for someone to let them in.

Josh realized that there was a body on the floor. It looked like the security guard's body who was there. He could just tell by the uniform. Josh had given up hope of being let in, but Tyler didn't.

He was still banging on the glass and screaming for someone to let them in, and finally, someone from behind the desk at which you checked in rose up. It was a man with brown hair, short on the sides and longer on the top who rose up.

He looked around inside like someone was going to come up and attack him and then started to speed walk towards the door, fishing keys out of his pocket, finding the right one before he got to the door and stuck it in, opening the door and letting both Tyler and Josh in.

Before Josh was fully in though, he took a glance behind him and saw a younger girl with blonde hair and white dress on standing across the street. She didn't appear to look like the others, but when Josh tried to call her over to come inside with them, her blue eyes just got wider then they already were and she ran away down an alleyway, maybe even to her death.


	3. Chair

After the girl had ran, the man who let them in pushed Josh inside and locked the door back up. 

 

"Do you have a phone?" Was the first question that Josh asked, gasping for breath between every two words.

 

"Josh you're really asking for a fucking phone?! Didn't we just fucking establish that it's the goddamn phones that caused this shit! Do you really want to become one of them!"

 

"Oh Tyler will you just shut the fuck up!"

 

Tyler seemed taken aback by Josh's answer, but nodded his head, looking down at his feet as he nervously started to shuffle them.

 

"We do have a phone, it's a landline though, so if you guys are right-which i presume you are because that makes the most sense-so that if it does work, you shouldn't become one of them."

 

"Let me try it."

 

"Are you sure? I mean, I could be wrong though."

 

"I said, let me try it."

 

The man who had a name tag reading "Brendon" nodded his head, similarly to the way Tyler did, but with less emotion, and led Josh over to the desk where the phone laid.

 

Josh went over to it. At this point, he was feeling like he didn't even want to pick up the phone, what if he did become one of them. If he did, that would mean that he wouldn't be able to ever see his son again because he wouldn't be there for his son to see. He wouldn't be the real him.

 

But alas, he took in a deep breath and picked up the phone, heart pounding in his chest and he pressed the numbers on the dial and brought the phone up to his ear. 

 

He pressed the last number, a 9, and brought it fully up to his hear. 

 

Only a dial tone was heard.

 

"Fuck!" Josh yelled before he slammed the phone back down onto where it usually rested and ran his hands through his hair, face red, breathing heavily.

 

If anything, he wasn't mad at anybody but himself, he was mad at himself because he didn't know where the hell his son was. He didn't know if his son was ok. He didn't know if his son was one of them. He doesn't know anything, and that's the thing that scared Josh the most. The unknown.

 

2

 

Tyler had managed to help calm Josh down after his whole fit of not being able to get ahold of his son, and Tyler understood that, because himself, even though it's not as worse or more worrysome as a kid, was worrying about his cat at his house.

 

Luckily for Tyler, though, a few days ago, his cat knocked his phone off the table, breaking it, meaning that even if he did have his phone, he wouldn't be able to use it. So in a sense, that cat saved Tyler's life without even knowing it.

 

The man labeled Brendon pretty much just stayed back and watched the entire thing unfold, and really, neither Tyler nor Josh could blame him. He didn't even know either of the two, he has never talked to them (expect the time the other night when he was checking Josh into his room, but that wasn't anything deep) and overall, he just didn't know what to say.

 

And surprisingly, it was relatively quiet.

 

Every now and then, there would be an occasional scream, some from regulars, some from not, but one was exceptionally close, one of the girl that they had seen in the white dress and blonde hair a few minutes ago.

 

She was outside, tackled by one of them and the only thing she had to defend herself was her own two hands.

 

Josh was the first to realize what was happening outside and that she needed help out there.

 

"Unlock the door!" Was the first thing he yelled, looking over at Brendon, but no response came.

 

Josh just scoffed at the man and looked around the room, spotting a chair by the wall and grabbing it, slamming it through the glass window.

 

He knocked the remaining glass out of the window, already catching the man who was attacking the little girl's attention. He lunged towards Josh, but Josh was quicker and slammed the chair into the man.

 

He fell to the ground, not giving up, and trying to stand back up, but again, Josh had the upper hand and slammed the chair down on him, breaking it.

 

He knocked the man out, but just for good measure, Josh took one of the broken wooden pieces and stabbed the man, for sure killing him in Josh's book.

 

The girl that was on the ground was already in tears, and clung onto Josh for dear life once she got on her feet, clawing at his shirt and spreading tears across the shoulder of his shirt.

 

He wrapped his arms around her and pat her back, trying to comfort her.

 

He told her that it would be better for them to get back inside than it would be to stay out in the open, and she nodded. Letting go of Josh's shirt, she stepped through the broken window while Tyler and Brendon walked over with a chair each and put them across the broken glass, blocking the entrance. It wasn't all that good, but it was enough for now.

 

3

 

Josh let Tyler handle the crying girl. He didn't know anything about her and she didn't know anything about them. The only things that she had been able to spit out during her sobs was "Jenna."

 

Because of this, Josh was just able to assume that her name was Jenna, but nothing else that she spoke was audible.

 

It took a good fifteen minutes to get her under control, and still even then, she had tears running down her face, but she wasn't making any audible sobs.

 

Her white dress was now stained with blood along with part of her face, more than it was the first time that Josh had seen her from across the street.

 

"I-I should have came w-when you t-told me t-to." She sobbed again, "I-Im really sorry.." 

 

"Hey, hey, hey, it's fine, don't worry. It's not your fault, it's no ones fault, I understand why you didn't come. You didn't trust us and you didn't know our intentions, but now you do. Don't cry hun, you're here with us now, nothing is gonna hurt you."

 

She nodded, tears falling down her face but she was collected.

 

Things looked like they were a little better from here.


End file.
